so utterly ridiculous about the sight that Queen May and her
followers, after various vain efforts to suppress their mirth, burst
into one peal of laughter, which rang merrily through the old fort,
and over the hillside.
"It broke the charm, and in a moment the children became children
again, and the grown people became as they were before.
"There was a large flat field on the mountain top, in front of the
gates of the old fort, and here all the exiles wore in a few minutes
assembled.
"The king was about to address them, when in a moment, no one knowing
how she came there, the Fairy Set-'em-right stood among them, close
beside his majesty.
"'You have all learned a lesson, and I will put it into words for
you,' she said."
"Oh, dear!" interrupted Bryda, "here comes the moral! Don't make a
very hard one, Uncle Jack, please!"
He laughed. "I must finish this truthful story truthfully, miss.
"She said, turning to the king and queen:
"'Your fault was that you forgot you once were young yourselves.'"
Bryda nodded her head very wisely.
"'And you, children, forgot that you could not do without old people.
That wicked law is at once repealed.'
"'Certainly, ma'am,' said the king, bowing.
"'Children are to be children, and behave as such, and be treated as
such. Parents are parents, the children are not to forget that. Now go
home all of you, and don't forget this one caution, _I've got my eye
on you_.'
"With these awful words the fairy vanished. And that's the end of the
story."
"And a very nice ending, too!" said Bryda.
[Illustration with caption: IS THERE A PECULIAR FLAVOR IN WHAT YOU
SPRINKLE FROM YOUR TORCH? ASKED SCROOGE--page 271 _From the drawing
by T Leech_]
BRDYA'S DREADFUL SCRAPE
By Mrs. E. M. Field
Bryda was awakened from her pleasant morning sleep by a strange sound.
Her window was partly open, but something struck against the upper
sash; it was not a bird that had lost its way, nor a wasp come to look
for jam, for as Bryda raised her head something that could only be a
handful of light gravel or shot struck the window again, and at the
same time a clear, shrill whistle sounded outside.
Bryda hastily sprang up. One does not care much about dress at nine
years old, so in white nightdress and dark twisted hair she fearlessly
put her head out of the window, and saw, to her delight, her cousin,
Maurice Gray, a boy some two years younger than herself, with his
queer, ugly little Scotch terrier, Toby, standing on the lawn. She
need not be sad for want of a playmate to-day.
"Get up and dress!" cried Maurice. "Aren't you ashamed, my Lady
Lie-in-bed? Come out directly!"
Bryda did not need a second invitation. A very short time indeed
passed before she was by Maurice's side.
His father had brought him over, he said; his father wanted to see
grandfather about some business, so he had started off very early.
Maurice was dreadfully hungry, and, as the grannies never breakfasted
till ten, he and Bryda each got a thick slice of bread and jam from
the good-natured cook, and then went off to the garden, Bryda running
races with Toby, who mostly had the best of it. You see he had four
legs to Bryda's two.
They went to the vinery, and acted a little play, which, however,
wanted a few more actors sadly. It was so puzzling for Bryda to be
both the imprisoned princess and the ogre at once; and when Maurice,
the valiant knight, slew Toby for a dragon, and stepped over his
corpse (or would have done, if Toby had been a little more dead, and
not run away every other minute), it got really puzzling, and it was
well that the breakfast-bell rang at that moment.
Breakfast was rather a long, dull affair. Uncle James, Maurice's
father, explained to grandfather a great deal about a drainage scheme;
and grandmother, every five minutes, asked her maid Martha, who stood
behind her chair, to tell her what it was all about, which Martha had
to do in very loud whispers over and over again.
Maurice and Bryda were very glad to run out again, with special
directions from grandmother to keep off wet grass, and not get into
mischief. This, they thought, could not possibly happen. This time
they rambled into the farmyard. Bryda would not look for more kittens,
but tried to make friends with some small balls of fluff, which meant
some day to be turkeys. At one corner of the yard was a deep tank, or
little pond, full of a dark brown, rather thick fluid, which was used
in the garden and fields, and had a great effect in the way of making
things grow. Bryda and her cousin stood looking at it.
"I declare," said Bryda, "it's like the Styx!"
"I don't see any sticks," said ignorant Maurice, who had never learned
that the old heathens believed the souls of dead people went in a
ferryboat across a dark river called the Styx, and that the old man
who rowed the boat was called Charon.
Bryda thought it would be capital fun to act this little scene.
Certainly the treacle-colored stuff in the pool looked nasty enough to
do very well for this dark river.
As to Maurice, he was younger than his cousin, and when they were
together she always invented the games, although he had been to school
already, and thought girls generally were very little use.
So when Bryda explained what she wanted to do, he only said that he
did not know how to act a story that he had never heard; to which
Bryda only answered quietly, and as if it were a fact no one could
think of doubting for a moment, "You don't know anything about
anything, Maurice. Sit down there--no! not on a cabbage, but on the
wheelbarrow--and I will tell you all about it."
So she told him the story, in the middle of which the wheelbarrow
upset, because Maurice laughed. So he sat on a log of wood, and Bryda
picked up the wheelbarrow, got into it, and began in the words of one
of her lesson-books, with a little alteration to suit the occasion.
"Friend! Roman! Countryman! lend me your ears! I am Charon--"
"What?" asked Maurice.
"Don't spoil my speech! You may only say 'Hear, hear!' as they do in
Parliament."
"But suppose I don't want to hear?"
Bryda had no notion of what they would do under such unlikely
circumstances; so, after thinking a little, she merely said, "Don't be
silly, Maurice!" And that sort of answer puts an end to any argument
quite easily.
"This is my dog Cerberus, with three heads," went on Bryda, pointing
to Toby.
"My! what a lot of bones he would eat!" said his master.
Bryda suddenly jumped down from her rather unsteady pulpit.
"Oh, we _will_ have fun! Here, Maurice, put on my white pinafore.
You shall be a ghost, and I will get into the tub with my dog
Cerberus, and ferry you over the river," she said.
"It won't hold two," said Maurice, looking rather doubtfully at the
rotten tub which Bryda pushed into the filthy waters, making a splash
and a most horrible smell as it went in.
"Oh, ghosts don't want much room! Now, Cerberus, in you go!" and in
the poor dog went, hastily and ungracefully; being, in fact, thrown in
head foremost.
After one howl he resigned himself, and lay down at the bottom of the
tub, into which unsteady boat Bryda, armed with her own small spade,
followed with Maurice's help.
Having balanced herself by crouching down, so as to bring the center
of gravity to the right place, she proceeded to paddle, or, as she
called it, to row with the little wooden spade, splashing a good deal,
and, of course, making the tub turn round and round, and wriggle very
uncomfortably in the pool. "Well, it doesn't matter," said Charon,
giving up in despair, and looking very red in the face. "We can
pretend I crossed the Styx to fetch you. Now I must speak to the soul
in Latin, because, of course, Charon and Cerberus talked Latin
always."
"I suppose Cerberus barked in Latin--all three mouths at once," said
Maurice; "what a horrid row it must have been!"
"Now talk away," said Bryda.
"But we don't know Latin; I've only just begun at _hic, haec, hoc_."
"_That_ doesn't matter; we must make it up, of course. If we put 'us'
or 'o' at the end of every word it will sound exactly like the stuff
Cousin Ronald learns. Now: Poor-us soul-us, do-us you-us want-o to cross
over-o?"
"Yes-o," replied Maurice promptly.
"Then-us come-o--oh! oh!" screamed Bryda, making the last word very
long indeed; for she trod on the _one_ tail of the dog Cerberus,
causing that remarkable animal to jump up howling. Charon's ferryboat
was not built to allow of athletic sports on board, so it went over,
and Bryda went in.
Oh, dear! what word can describe the filthy mess into which Bryda was
plunged up to her waist! the smell of it, and the chill, horrible
feeling! Fortunately, she had just taken Maurice's hand, to help in
"the soul," who indeed felt very lucky to escape such a voyage!
Maurice was able to help her, but, soaked to the waist and ready to
cry, she scrambled up to dry land.
By way of mending matters, the dog Cerberus, who may be supposed to
have become Toby again, had gone in altogether, and was rather pleased
with himself. So he came and had a good shake close to Bryda, so as to
splash all the rest of her small person, and then ran round and round,
expressing his delight by all sorts of queer noises.
But, oh! here was a mess! And this after the trouble of yesterday, and
all Bryda's good resolutions! It was too dreadful, and tears came fast
to her eyes.
But kind Maurice, instead of laughing, pitied her. "Don't cry," he
said; "can't you _wash_?"
"I might _run_," said Bryda dolefully, remembering what dreadful
things happened to frocks that "ran."
"That stuff might run off," said Maurice; "come on."
And she followed meekly to the nearest greenhouse, where was a large
tub of fresh water, and beside it a big squirt or syringe used for
watering plants high up in the greenhouse.
"Oh, Maurice dear, I never will call you stupid again!" cried Bryda,
delighted, as Maurice filled the syringe and set to work upon her.
What fun that was! It was almost worth the fright of that horrid
splash, and almost--not quite, perhaps--worth the disgrace Bryda would
certainly be in with nurse. Such peals of laughter followed each shower
that the quiet cows in the fields beyond lifted up their great heavy
heads, and stared with brown eyes of mild astonishment.
Can you imagine the sort of figure Bryda was when grandmother came out
in her wheel-chair to take a turn in the sunshine? Soaked from head to
foot; streams of clean water, and others of the horribly smelling
stuff into which she had plunged, pouring off her in all directions!
She did indeed look a miserable little guilty thing, hanging her head
while grandmother looked at her through her gold eyeglass, evidently
so surprised and shocked that she could find no words for a few
minutes, and at last could only tell her she must never! never! never!
do such dreadful things again. If she did, the consequences would be
* * * * *
This row of stars must stand for those dreadful consequences, for
Bryda never heard them! Uncle James and grandfather had come up by
this time, and she fled, as fast as wet, clinging clothes would let
her, to the house. It was "out of the frying-pan into the fire,"
though, for nurse's wrath was really something too dreadful; and the
way in which she ended, by saying that she supposed Miss Bryda would
like better to make mud pies in the streets than to play with other
Christians, hurt the child's feelings dreadfully. I am sorry to say
she walked out of the nursery with damp, smooth hair and a clean
frock, but with her head so very much in the air that her namesake,
Saint Bride, or Bridget, or Bryda, would have been quite shocked.
"You see, Cousin Salome," she said afterwards, "it was such a dose of
disgraces, and I meant to be so wise, and clever, and useful."
"Did you ask to be made wise, and clever, and useful?" asked Salome
gently.
Bryda hung her head. She had forgotten that, I am afraid she dressed
so quickly in the morning to join Maurice that she never remembered
to ask the Helper of the helpless to make her what she would like to
be.
"I have been so miserable, Cousin Salome," she added; "I don't believe
Mary Queen of Scots could have been more wretched if she had had her
head cut off three times running."
How this was to be managed did not seem to strike Bryda as puzzling.
She and Maurice had so often acted the execution of Mary of Scotland,
with an armchair for the block, and an umbrella for an ax, that they
were quite used to the queen having her head cut off very often
without minding it in the least, or being any the worse for it
afterward.
But, certainly, it is very tiresome when our most amusing games end in
some mischief that we never dreamed of doing! It was not so very long
before this dreadful accident in the tub that Bryda, who had been
reading English history, told Maurice they would act King Canute and
his courtiers on the seashore.
So she put two chairs, and collected all the water she could from
every jug and water-bottle she could find, so as nearly to fill a bath
placed in front of the two chairs on which she and Maurice sat.
"So they put chairs close by the seashore as the tide came in,"
related Bryda, "and the little waves came nearer and nearer. And the
courtiers said, 'Oh king, let us move a little higher up.' But Canute
said, 'Why should we? Did you not say I was such a great king that no
doubt even the sea would obey me?' And the courtiers held their stupid
tongues, for they knew very well that they had said so. But the tide
kept on coming, and presently the courtiers got up and ran away, for
the water was halfway up the legs of their chairs, and they had
already been sitting with their knees up to their noses."
But here Bryda, trying to get herself into this graceful position,
lost her balance, and rolled off her chair, falling on the edge of the
bath; which, of course, upset, and made a higher tide in the nursery
than had ever been seen there before, for the water flowed in every
direction, and the children, ashamed and frightened though they were,
could not help laughing at the way in which a pair of Bryda's shoes
floated about like little canoes, till one that had a hole at the side
turned over and went down.
This happened at Bryda's own home, before her father and mother went
away. Mother was not pleased, of course; but still she was not quite
so dreadfully shocked as the grannies were at the adventure in the old
tub.
THE CRATCHITS' CHRISTMAS DINNER
By Charles Dickens
Scrooge stood with the Ghost of Christmas Present in the city streets
on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people
made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping
the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the
tops of their houses: whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it
come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial
little snowstorms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker,
contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and
with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been
plowed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons;
furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where
the great streets branched off, and made intricate channels, hard to
trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and
the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed
half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty
atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent,
caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content.
There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet
was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air
and brightest summer sun might have endeavored to diffuse in vain.
For, the people who were shovelling away on the house-tops were jovial
and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and
now and then exchanging a facetious snowball--better-natured missile
far than many a wordy jest--laughing heartily if it went right and not
less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half
open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were
great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the
waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling
out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy,
brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of
their growth like Spanish friars; and winking from their shelves in
wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely
at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high
in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the
shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that
people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of
filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient
walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle-deep through
withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab, and swarthy,
setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching
to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold
and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though
members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that
there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and
round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.
The grocers'! oh, the grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two
shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was
not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry
sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that
the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even
that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the
nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds
so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the
other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted
with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and
subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy,
or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their
highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its
Christmas dress: but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in
the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each
other at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left
their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them,
and committed hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humor
possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that
the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might
have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for
Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel,
and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best
clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there
emerged from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings,
innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The
sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very
much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and
taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on
their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of
torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some
dinner-carriers who had jostled with each other, he shed a few drops
of water on them from it, and their good humor was restored directly.
For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it
was! God love it, so it was!
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers' were shut up; and yet there
was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of
their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven;
where the pavements smoked as if its stones were cooking too.
"Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch?"
asked Scrooge.
"There is. My own."
"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" asked Scrooge.
"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."
"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.
"Because it needs it most."
"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of
all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp
these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment."
"I!" cried the Spirit.
"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day,
often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said
Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"
"I!" cried the Spirit.
"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said Scrooge.
"And it comes to the same thing."
"_I_ seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.
"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least
in that of your family," said Scrooge.
"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who
lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride,
ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are
as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived.
Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they
had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable
quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that
notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any
place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he
could have done in any lofty hall.
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off
this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty
nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to
Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him,
holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit
smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the
sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a
week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his
Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his
four-roomed house!
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in
a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a
goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda
Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master
Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into
his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned
to show his linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller
Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the
baker's they had smelled the goose, and known it for their own; and
basking in luxurious thoughts of sage-and-onion, these young Cratchits
danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the
skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him)
blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at
the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.
"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs. Cratchit.
"And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas
Day by half-an-hour!"
"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah!
There's _such_ a goose, Martha!"
"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs.
Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and
bonnet for her with officious zeal.
"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and
had to clear away this morning, mother!"
"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit
ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!"